15:21, 19 May 2023

Special services make case of Ukrainian woman detained at Verkhni Lars secret

Leniye Umerova. Photo https://tvrain.tv * included by the Russian Ministry of Justice into the register of foreign agents

Relatives of Leniye Umerova, a Crimean Tatar woman, who was held in the Vladikavkaz temporary detention centre (known as the IVS) for more than four months, cannot get access to the details of her case. Umerova's brother has treated her accusation of espionage as fabricated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 4, relatives of the 25-year-old Leniye Umerova, who had been kept at the IVS in Vladikavkaz since December 2022, learned that she had become a suspect in an espionage case.

Since 2015, Umerova, a native of Crimea and a citizen of Ukraine, had lived in Kyiv. In December 2022, she went to Crimea to visit her sick father, but at the "Verkhni Lars" border checkpoint she was detained by Russian law enforcers and taken to Vladikavkaz. The young woman was accused of violating the rules of crossing the Russian state border.

Russian secret services have classified the materials of the criminal case on espionage opened against Umerova, the "OVD-Info"* human rights project reports.

According to the FSB (Russian Federal State Security Service), Umerova "transferred to Ukrainian special services information about the deployment and missions of the Russian troops acting in the Kyiv Region," the "Interfax" reports.

Leniye's brother has stated that she left Ukraine immediately after February 24, 2022, and could not transmit any information "about Russian troops in the Kyiv Region." He has linked his sister's persecution with the fact that "Crimean Tatars are 'inconvenient' for Russia."

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 18, 2023 at 11:57 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot